1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is in the field of online gaming and pertains particularly to methods and apparatus for dynamically optimizing processing capacities on gaming appliances engaged in game play.
2. Discussion of the State of the Art
In the art of online gaming, a game server with physics simulation capabilities manages play of a hosted game by multiple players. The players connect to the game 15 server using a gaming appliance having a network browser, a graphics user interface (GUI) and one or more data input devices adapted to enable game play. Gaming devices may vary from player to player. A gaming appliance suitable for online gaming may include a game box, a personal computer, a laptop, a smart phone, an iPad™ tablet, an Android™ smart phone device, an iPhone™ or a personal digital assistant (PDA). Many proficient game players use powerful gaming boxes or computing systems that have a graphics programming unit (GPU) card that helps to speed up the processing of graphics and other processing intensive gaming effects that might be served like fire and smoke, for example.
A challenge to the gaming system is that every player does not own a state-of-art gaming box or a gaming computer (PC). Users play games with a variety of different types of gaming appliances such as laptop computers, cell phones, smart phones, etc. Therefore, processing capacities reserved or dedicated to playing a game may be different from player to player across the board. Moreover, unexpected processes can start on a non-dedicated gaming appliance that can take away from the processing power available for processing game objects and events served from the game server during game play.
Therefore, what is clearly needed is a system for optimizing processing capacity for a group of gaming appliances engaged in play of an online game. A system such as this would help create more competition among users and would provide further incentive to play online multi-dimensional games.